When I Was Down And Lost

l was asked to think of a favorite quote and ended up, instead, thinking of of a time when I was so down and so lost, so forsaken that I knew my life was over. Obviously, it wasn’t, but I’d like to share those thoughts with you today. I hope you or someone you love might find these words bring hope.

DOWN AND LOST

When you feel down and lost, so low that there is nothing left.
When you feel your life has no more meaning and there is nothing left for you.
When you are so low that you are in that black pit, you know the one.

That was the time I laid myself flat out on the ground and just lay there.
I lay watching the sky and clouds,
Without thought and without feelings.
No sense of anything,
Just lay there.
Not feeling the ground at my back.
Just lying there, doing nothing,
Watching the clouds slide on by,
Changing into phantasmagoric shapes
But I didn’t see them
Watched them slide away into nothingness

I lay there, my back flat out on the ground,
And watched the sky and the clouds.
No thoughts, judgment, or criticism,
No hopes, wishes, or loss.
No feelings
Just clouds and sky sliding away into nothingness –
Like me.

Until one day,
Who knows what day
Or how long it took to get to that day,
Just one day,
That one day,
I actually saw … something

I saw shapes drifting by in the sky.
I saw colors of the sky and the clouds.
I saw changing light and changing shapes.
I saw …. something
And still I lay there with my back flat on the ground.

And then one day,
Who knows what day or how long it took to get to that day,
Just one day, that one day
A thought floated through,
Was it in the clouds, on the air?
Just a single thought
But it was a thought that carried with it the beat of my heart
A thought that caused a movement
A stir in my body –
Just a small,
Tiny movement …
But movement

And that thought, the thought that changed my life,
The thought that woke me from the pit,
The thought that gave me life
Was this

When I am so low
When I have nothing and no one,
When I am forsaken by others,
Forsaken by myself as well,
As I lie here on the ground
Because there is no place and nothing

The ONLY thing left,
The ONLY thing for me to do,
The ONLY way for me to go